February 22, 2014

For my husband and I, both of our families taught us the value of hard work at a young age. It is something we felt was important enough to do the same with our own kids.

Farrah, a fan on YouTube asked, “When should your child get a first job? How can you push them in a positive way?”

Obviously, we do not have legally-employable teenagers yet, but I do have advice for what I plan to do. This does not mean that I have not been preparing my children from a very young age to appreciate hard work and the value of a dollar.

In fact, just this week I had a parent ask me about how we teach our kids to work.

I went into detail about how we placed our children on salary {allowance} for “additional” household chores when they turned age 5. Keeping rooms clean and regular household chores are simply part of living in the home. Then, for each birthday present I had to buy, field trip or piano lesson I had to pay for, etc, the child had to contribute $0.25 towards it. Very quickly our children started to see that things have a cost, and that money is not plentiful.

{My husband then began a rule that he would charge the kids another $0.25 for lights being left on or outside doors being left open. You wouldn’t believe how helpful this was when it came time that they wanted something, and then did not have enough money to buy it!}

These efforts helped to teach our kids how to not only work for a salary, like in real life, but how to budget and understand the value of a dollar. We even held annual performance evaluations, and offered raises, or bonuses, if results met expectations… just like in real life.

While nobody is perfect in ensuring children learn these valuable lessons, it is important as parents that we do all we can to teach them in a simple and relatable manner while they are young, so each is better prepared for life’s lessons as he/she ventures out in to the world.

To see more about how we teach our children the value of a dollar and hard work in the CGH home, please feel free to view the #MomMinute episode below…

What suggestions do you have the subject, and at what age did you have your first job?

February 15, 2014

Many of you know that we’ve been asked the mascara question regarding my daughters’ eyelashes a million times since we started this hairstyle website back in 2008. {Viewers often thought that I used mascara on my young daughters.} As you have come to know me and my family, you can see that those are my girls’ 100%natural eyelashes.

This does bring up an excellent question, however… “At what age is makeup appropriate for our daughters?”

The answer may vary, depending on the parents and also the child. There really isn’t a right answer, although we can all agree that lots of makeup on girls at a young age isn’t the norm. {Dance recitals, and other events of the like, excluded.}

In our home, my girls have always loved lip gloss and Santa usually provided some each year in their Christmas stockings. By age 12, we allowed Brooklyn and Bailey to wear a little mascara to help accentuate their eyes. By age 13, we allowed them to use a limited amount of concealer or powder to help hide acne.

Today, at age 14, my girls can wear pretty much what they want, and I am happy that they have decided that less is more!

My mantra with the girls is, “Makeup should only be used to accent your natural beauty, not cover it up.”

If you are looking for a little extra help, many makeup stores and counters will have cosmetologists who are more than happy to give you and your daughter a beginner makeup training. {Also, my twins are posting a video series on their YouTube channel, BrooklynAndBailey, where they teach beginner makeup tips.}

To see more about our position on makeup in the CHG home, please click the #MomMinute episode below…

What suggestions do you have on age appropriate makeup for girls? At what age did you start, and with what?

February 01, 2014

In today’s episode of Mom Minute, we invited Kati Morton, a licensed marriage and family therapist to talk about a very serious issue today… Eating Disorders.

I am not a licensed therapist, nor would I ever offer advice in any professional manner on the subject. What I will share is what I do to help keep my kids aware of the dangers of eating disorders and if I ever suspect that anything is going on, the first thing I should do is seek professional help.

The media today surrounds us with images of men and women in an idealized state. Often the media will take an otherwise beautiful model, add tons of makeup/powders/gels/hairsprays, turn on unnatural lighting, add a fake breeze, pose them in uncomfortable poses wearing uncomfortable clothes {or lack thereof}… and that is what the general public takes as an acceptable standard for society. If that wasn’t enough, 99.9% of the photos are then photoshopped to remove wrinkles, moles, shadows, skin blemishes, or even add to or reduce natural curves.

Women and young teens are particularly susceptible to desiring the perfect image of their gender, and fooling themselves into believing that anything less is unacceptable. One way they believe they can control their body shape is to alter their eating habits or dieting.

{Men are not immune to eating disorders, but they only make up only 10-15% of the cases. This statistic is something that scares me as a mother of six, with five of them being girls.}

To hear Kati’s recommendations of how to talk about this as a friend, or as a parent to a child suffering from an eating disorder {along with the warning signs}, please be sure to watch the The Mom’s ViewMom Minute episode below…

Do you have any experiences on this topic, or any advice for others who either are going through an eating disorder or know someone who is? Please free to leave your comments below…

January 25, 2014

I perfectly understand that each child comes into our lives with his/her own set of abilities and hidden talents.

It is my role as a parent, to raise these children and to help provide opportunities for them to explore their natural abilities.

When our children turn the age of three, we enroll each child into a few activities hoping that they can begin discovering what they are good at in their younger years. We began with soccer and dance first, and then added piano by the time they could read. Over the years, we have also implemented violin, gymnastics, modeling, and theater and some of them have stuck.

It may be that a skill we are really good at is not something we particularly enjoy. It’s hard to see that gift as a talent, when it is something we do not like to do. The talent is there, but maybe the passion comes from noticing how our talent affects the lives of others. Then we can be truly happy in our talent. {This is why my husband regrets on giving up playing the piano when he was young.}

Finding our talents can be a learning process, taking several years or up to a lifetime to achieve. For myself, creating braided hairstyles was not something I was good at in my teen years {my friends can vouch for this}. Hairstyling was something I developed in motherhood, and it took several years and lots of practice before I felt comfortable sharing it with the world.

Most of us are not lucky enough to be a child prodigy, but we are each born with at least one talent. Our responsibility is to discover what that talent is, nurture it, and share it with others. There are few things sweeter than seeing how something we are good at… can truly bless the lives of others.

Our talent may be something subtle, but equally as impactful as more awesome talents. Those subtle talents may be your laugh or smile, or being a peacemaker. The size of the talent does not matter… it is what we do with it that counts.

In today’s episode of Mom Minute, I share our views on finding and nurturing our talents, as well as share a special talent of my 3rd daughter!

January 18, 2014

Those of us who have grown past our teenage years, know of the seriousness of peer pressure. We also know that it will never completely go away as we grow older.

What we can do, is condition and prepare ourselves, and our children, so that we know what we will do whenever those situations arise.

People, despite growing up in the same area, can have varying moral thresholds. Each family is different, just like every person is different, and the diversity is something we celebrate. Because of this, something you or I may not agree with may be perfectly fine to do by someone we consider as a peer.

I am just a few years into the teen years with my twins, and have another 16 years of teenage-dom ahead of me. I pray that my children may remain humble and grounded in their moral standards, and choose friends who not only love them… but will stand up for them in such peer pressure situations. I teach my children to do the same.

In today’s episode of Mom Minute, we share our views of peer pressure, and what we do in the CHG home to help our children maintain their morals in such situations, and share a few examples!

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About Me

What do you get when you cross 34 yrs of living, 14 yrs of marriage, one HOT husband, five adorable daughters, one handsome son, and tons of great family and friends? Pretty much the sum total of who I am!!